Rowan Trollope

More training

Well, we’ve been up to a few things lately.  Steve House and Jeanne dropped by on the way to Kathmandu, where Steve is heading to the west face of Makalu…

Beamer and I have climbed Tahquitz in semi-winter conditions on Sahara Terror — it was freezing rock, which was hard to climb.  We turned around half-way up.

Last weekend we hit San Gorgonio (11.5k ft)…  We were having a lazy day, and turned around after 12 miles.  We’d added an hour to the trip by getting lost at around 9k where the snow obscured the trail.  After finding it again, we made it to high camp, and decided it would be too long of a day for our comfort.  We’ll finish it next weekend perhaps.

Upcoming trips are: Mt. Rainer (Eamons route) — U-Notch couloir on the Polemonium glacier.

Adirondacks

Laura Hall, Sam Cervantes and I went Ice Climbing in the Adirondacks in the last weekend of February.  Check out our trip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4AibY5D5EE

Ice climbing @ Lee Vining

Last weekend, Danny and I went Ice Climbing at Chouinard falls in Lee Vining Canyon.  It was rad.  Check out the short video I made of the climbing…

Mt. Whitney Winter Ascent - Mountaineers Route

Hello friends,

This weekend I will be traveling with a team of 6 climbers to attempt a winter ascent of Mt. Whitney by the Mountaineers Route.

Our planned goal is a winter ascent of the mountaineers route on Mt. Whitney, which at 14,495 feet is the tallest mountain in the US outside of Alaska.

Our team of 6 will be split in to 3 teams of 2 climbers each.  Team 1 aka “The Gentlemen’s Climbing Club of East LA” is Beamer Hodge and I.  Team 2 “Team North Face” are two guys from the North Face, Danny Wade and Rob.  Team 3 “Team San Diego” are Taylor Wade and his dad.  Beamer is an experienced aid climber with many hard climbs under his belt.  Danny and Taylor “The brothers” are experienced mountaineers and ice climbers.

Our itinerary is as follows:

Day 1 (Thursday): Leaving LA in the late afternoon and driving to Whitney.  Camp at the base to begin acclimatization.  Elevation: 7,000 ft.
Day 2: Leave base camp early and climb to Upper Boyscout lake.  Elevation: 10,000 ft.
Day 3: Climb to Iceberg lake.  Time permitting, we will do some waterfall ice climbing at the Boyscout falls.  Elevation: ~13,000 ft.
Day 4: Mountaineers start (3am) – Weather permitting.  Summit attempt.  Elevation ~14,495 ft.  After summit, we will attempt to descend the entire mountain back to the base camp by late on Day 4.

Because this is a big mountain, and due to the huge amount of snowfall, it is possible that we won’t make it off on Day 4, so a final night, and Day 5 descent might be necessary.

The climb will look like this:

The Mountaineer’s Couloir

The overall route we plan to take

Baldy Bowl

Yesterday we climbed the bowl at Mt. Baldy.  5 feet of hard packed snow made for a quick ascent (5 hours base to summit).

The summit was very windy, so we dug a small hole in the snow to sit inside so we could eat our lunch with some protection.
We glissaded (slid down on our butts), almost the entire way from the summit back to the Sierra Hut.  At 8 miles roundtrip with nearly 4,000 feet of elevation gain, it is a great day trip.

Shasta Casaval ridge

Hemingway (or perhaps Barnaby Conrad) once said “There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.”

Pictures from our trip here
Two weeks ago, while planning a trip to Mt. Shasta, I read a news report about a woman who had just that same day fallen to her death on the icy slopes Avalanche gulch.  She wasn’t wearing a helmet.  And so it was that two weeks later, Lauren and I started our drive to go climb this same route, on the mountain which had almost taken my life last year in August.  I planned to be much more careful this time…
I guess I forgot to mention the recent fatality to Lauren until we had driven 6 hours.  She took it in stride, and we vowed to be careful.

We planned to climb up to Casaval ridge.  In the words of the Shasta Guide book, “if Walt Disney drew a picture perfect mountainous ridge, it would by Casaval”.  A striking prominent knife edge ridge splitting the southern face of Shasta in two, Casaval ridge is chock full of gendarmes, towers, notches and incredible exposure — it is a beautiful and airy climb.   At 10,500 ft, there is a small section known as the “First Window”, which is accessible from Avalanche gulch directly below it.

Our climb started Saturday at noon.  In addition to cold-weather climbing gear, a stove to melt snow, zero degree sleeping bags and a tent, our packs were laden with all the technical climbing gear needed to climb steep snow and ice climbs, including a thin 8.9mm 60 meter rope, a small rock rack, two ice screws and two pickets.  Our packs were thus considerably heavier than the few other climbers we saw climbing the normal Avalanche gulch route, which is mostly a steep hike.

By mid afternoon, we reached the Green Butte ridge at around 9,000ft, and set up our camp for the night.  A few hours were spent enjoying the scenery while Lauren practiced some of the technical skills involved in steep snow/ice climbing, including rope management, use of an ice-axe and self-arrest.  After a hearty dinner, we turned in at 7pm, exhausted from the altitude and the approach.

The next morning we reluctantly emerged from our toasty sleeping bags into the frigid December air.  We got started by dawn.  After a short approach, we arrived at the base of the ridge where we thought we could access the First Window.

Roping up and putting our crampons on, we made short work of the first pitch, where I belayed Lauren up to a small rock, smack dab in the middle of the snow field.  Next, we traversed over to the left side to an overhanging rock outcropping, which would keep us safe from any possible rock fall.  Two more pitches of steeper snow led to the airy and exposed ridge.

We had lunch sitting directly on the top of the ridge, a 2 foot wide section with incredible views.  It was noon.  After a few bites of my sandwich, we both heard a rumbling, then looked down to see a few rocks whizzing down the right side of the field.  The sun was heating up the rocks, melting the snow and ice cementing them to the ridge, freeing them to fall to gravity’s will.

Gulping down our lunch, we snapped a few pictures, then discussed our descent strategy.  Lauren pointed out that she had never down climbed anything like this before.  We decided that rather than rappelling, I’d lower her down, and then down climb myself un-roped, this being faster than a rappel.

With this simple plan, we began our descent.  At first we stuck to the left side of the field, where we had yet to see any rocks fall.  The overhanging rocks also offered some shelter.  After our third pitch, we were forced to traverse into the main part of the field — the firing line for the rock fall.  I began to lower Lauren when an ominous rumble from above announced the incoming fire.  Looking up, we were surprised to see a watermelon sized rock bouncing and spinning straight at us at frightening speed.  Luckily it missed Lauren by about 10 feet.

With this bit of fear to motivate us, and the adrenaline now clearing our heads, we decided to un-rope to down climb more quickly.  We figured the risk of getting hit by a rock was greater than the risk of falling.  We quickly made it to the bottom of the field, and out of the firing line.  A few hours later, our adrenaline back to normal levels, we were back at our camp, packing up, and getting ready for the hike back down.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend, great weather and a memorable climb.

Mt. Whitney Mountaineers Route

Over three days in September of 2008, Lauren Reichenberg and I climbed Mt. Whitney’s famous mountaineer’s route.  The forecast called for high winds on Saturday, lessening on Sunday.

The climb begins at the Whitney portal, which sits at 8,000 ft.  We got started at 8:30am to warm weather and mild winds.  Our packs were light (26 pounds) compared to other climbers on the route who regularly travel with 45 – 65 backbreaking pounds.

By noon, we had hiked & climbed up to Lower Boyscout Lake at 10,000 ft and then up to Upper Boyscout Lake by around 2pm. where we refilled our water.  Following that the climbing got considerably steeper as we continued up to our base camp, Iceberg lake.

Ascending into the rock-strewn valley below Iceberg lake, the wind picked up considerably, occasionally knocking us off balance.  We had brought no ropes for the near vertical final 400 ft of climbing just below the summit, and knew we’d be unable to finish in these conditions.

Pressing on, we reached Iceberg lake by 4 PM to find the base camp full of wind-weary climbers, bunkered down behind the few large boulders.

At 13,000 ft, Iceberg lake is a breathtaking body of water which sits in a small bowl directly below the massive east face of Mt. Whitney.  Surrounding the lake is a rock field strewn with boulders large and small.  No trees or green here.

There are several rock-walls which have been built up over time for climbers to protect their tents from the wind.  To our dismay, all the good sites were taken, and we were left to the dregs — a very exposed site just off the lake.  Making the best of the situation, we spent about half an hour building up the existing rock-wall, a futile attempt to protect and shield us for the night.

Speaking with some of the other climbers, I found one party had been stuck up there for the last 24 hours, unable to climb due to the wind.  They were tired and said if they had to endure another night of it, they were determined to pack it in and hike out.

As the sun went down, the wind picked up battering our tent severely.  It was hard to sleep with all the noise, and unfortunately within less than an hour, I had to get up to go pee.  The wind chill factor made it very cold indeed (considerably below freezing I think).  Returning quickly to my bag, I unfortunately developed a mild hypothermia.  Between the lack of sleep, the 7 hours of hiking and not enough food, my body was unable to maintain its core temperature.  While I’m no stranger to this condition, Lauren was kind of freaked out.  I was too tired to do anything about it immediately, so I laid there and shivered.  After an hour I finally roused myself enough to boil up a liter of water, and put this into my sleeping bag to re-warm my body.  This did the trick, turning my sleeping bag into a toasty safe haven ending my shivers.  Also luckily, some time after this the wind died down, allowing us to doze off and get a few hours sleep.

The next morning, at 7:30 AM, we awoke to a bluebird day.  No wind, and crystal clear blue skies.  Packing up a small summit pack, including food, water and extra layers, we got our start, climbing up the final 1,000 feet to the notch.  This took us a good 2 hours, and was quite taxing given the altitude.  At the top of the notch, we cached most of our gear and continued to the “final 400”.

This is a steep and exposed couloir coming down from the summit on the north side.  It is covered in a permanent ice-field year round, but in summer, enough of the ice melts away to provide a safe passage.  The alternative was to traverse around to the back side of the mountain and walk up.  Given that Lauren is an experienced and good rock climber, we both felt confident that this last hurdle would fall easily to our attack, and it did.  Climbing to the left of the couloir, we avoided the ice and found an easy route up.

Near the top, we got below a dead vertical headwall which looked absolutely impassable from below.  We traversed right across a small ledge with crappy handholds to get back to the right side.  The exposure was a bit scary, and I began to wonder if I should have told Lauren the story about the climber who died here last summer when he lost his grip and fell.  She pulled it together and gingerly stepped across the 4 inch ledge to a great sigh of relief.  Twenty more feet of easy scrambling and we finally emerged onto the summit plateau.

Gone was the wind, and all that was left was a crystal clear, beautiful day on the summit of the highest mountain in the lower-48 states: 14,498 feet.

Business week

Business week wrote an article about some of the work we’ve been doing for Norton 2009.  Check it out here: Rowan Trollope

Angel’s fright

August 8th 2008, Danny and I climbed the route known as Angel’s Fright on Tahquitz.  Pictures are here.

We camped out at the base Wednesday night to get an early start. The mosquitos were fierce.  I closed up my sleeping bag so only my forehead and nose were exposed.  I still got bitten — on my forehead!

Getting an early start, our goal was to climb as quickly as we possibly could – ideally we would finish the entire route in 5 hours.  Leaving our pack at the base of the climb, we brought only essentials with us: 2 litres of water, climbing gear and a couple of power bars.
The climb was 4 pitches.  Danny led the first section, up a short (60 foot) chimney. A chimney is an akward obstacle involving inserting your entire body into a large crack, feet on one side, pushing your back on the other side.  He belayed me up and I led the next pitch which was to be the most difficult part of the climb.

Traversing right, I found the route leading up and left, above the belay ledge where Danny stood.  About 10 feet up, I found a small foothold (4 inches) with an old rusty piton, which I clipped into as my protection.  At this point I was confronted with a committing move out onto a blank section of vertical wall to my left.  Climbing above the ledge and out over the blank section of wall I was confronted with the fear of exposure.  Hundreds of feet of free air hung below me, with only a rusty piton 10 feet down to catch my fall.  My hair stood on end.  I quickly realized I couldn’t back down without falling.  Clinging precariously to that wall, I began to tell myself that I couldn’t make the next move, and that I was going to fall.  I froze up and stopped moving, unable to force my body to make the next move.  After what seemed like an eternity, but which was probably less than a minute, my arms began to shake, and I started losing my grip.

Terrified, I started talking out loud…  I can’t hold on here much longer.  I can’t make the next move.  I’m going to fall now.  Danny sat on the ledge 15 feet below looking up.  Sensing the danger of my situation he held his words of encouragement.

Forcing my body to reach out, I made the next move, and climbed to the safe ledges above.  Danny led the final pitch which involved a very tricky friction climb up a slope.  This is a section involving a slope with no hand or footholds, but which is not vertical.  You use the friction of your sticky rubber shoes and slowly shuffle up the wall.  After my scare on the face, I was happy to led him lead the last section.

Then we were at the top!  Except for the scary parts, it was pretty easy.

Mt. Laurel, North east face

Early April on a Saturday in 2008, I went out to climb Mt. Laurel with Taylor and Danny, and couple of other Alpine climbers.  Laurel Mountain is an 11,800′ peak just south of Mammoth Lakes.  Mt. Laurel is a huge climb, involving 2 miles of technical climbing up the North East face.  The route meanders through a confusing maze of vertical gullies, cliffs and false summits.

All the intel we had on Mt. Laurel was a short summary of the summer route up the North-East face with 1 B&W photo.  The description of the route admitted that it is “just about as good as a ouija board”.  After a short approach round the beautiful Convict Lake, we got to the snow gulley (around 10am) which was detailed in the route description.  The initial climbing was relatively low angle (rated a 5.2 rock climb in the summer).  With all the snow, it was a steep snow climb, which involved lots of step-kicking.  You can see our route here:  

After three hours of tiring step-kicking, we got to the real technical bit, which was the crux (the hardest part) of the climb (shown here:http://picasaweb.google.com/rowantrollope/MtLaurelAscentApril2008/photo#5186681840892295730).  This was a short section of technical mixed rock and ice — where we should have stopped to rope up and place protection, since a fall involved about 1,000 feet of exposure.  Given the relatively easy nature of the crux, we all free soloed it with no rope.  After the crux, the climbing got much steeper (http://picasaweb.google.com/rowantrollope/MtLaurelAscentApril2008/photo#5186681892431903298), and the snow got icy and hard.  We roped up and alternatively kicked steps or front-pointed.  This was much slower, but we all felt we were making good time, and we were safely roped together.

By 3pm, we’d exited the top of the steepest couloir (a gulley), shown here:http://picasaweb.google.com/rowantrollope/MtLaurelAscentApril2008/photo#5186681918201707090.  We had arrived at some lower angle snow, which was unconsolidated.  The going got much tougher here.  While there was less exposure, every step involved sinking in, sometimes almost to your hips.  This slowed us down dramatically, but by now, we could see what we thought was the final pitch.  By 5:35pm we got to the end of the snow, and onto the final bit of rock, which we thought might lead us to the summit — unfortunately, it turned out that we’d taken a wrong turn, and had peaked out at 11,400 (just 400 feet from the true summit), but separated by a huge cliff and a thousand foot drop off.  The views at the top were absolutely spectacular and we had a quick bite to eat while we discussed our predicament.

We realized we’d have to descent about 1,500 feet to get onto the right line.  Given that it would be dark in an hour and a half, we discussed briefly, and decided that the only course of action was to down-climb the entire route.  A bit scary for Taylor who’d never performed a steep snow descent.  We debated roping up for the descent and determined it would be too slow and much too dangerous.  Instead we decided to down-climb with no ropes — in this situation you just have to go slowly and don’t slip.

Our goal was to make it back to the crux before dark (where we knew we’d need to rappel, due to the steepness).  The crux was in a steep couloir with exposed rock and ice about 10 feet wide in the middle, with steep rock walls on either side.  I hustled and got there first to setup an anchor we could rappel from.  At first, I placed a snow picket into the steep snow directly above the rock.  It went in, but the snow wasn’t firm enough, and I decided I might be able to find better placements for Pitons in the side-walls of the couloir.  As darkness fell, I scrambled around on the rock with my crampons on, using my axes to hold me to the walls.  It was a bit precarious, but eventually I found a crack and in desperation pounded in a short Piton with my hammer.  The piton went in about half-way, then stopped.  I wouldn’t trust my life to that placement, so I found another crack, and this time hammered in a longer piton, which went all the way in.  It felt very secure.

Taylor arrived, and I asked him to grab my pack and the pickets I’d placed higher on the snow.  He gathered everything up and started to traverse across the ice towards me.  About half way across the gully, he had to stop since it was too dangerous to continue the traverse encumbered with the ropes, pickets and two packs.  I climbed back up to him to relieve him of the load, and we both completed the traverse to the other side of the couloir.  At this point we both descended to the piton anchor we’d placed, and I clipped in — safe at last.  Danny arrived a few minutes later with the other rope, and I quickly setup the first rappel.

I rappelled first to test my piton anchor placements.  Slowly I put my full weight onto the rope and began to lower myself down.  After a few feet of descent, the sketchy piton I’d worried about made a pinging sound and popped out!  I dropped a couple feet onto the single remaining Piton, which thankfully held fast.  Hanging in free air when one of your two Pitons pops out will get your heart beating!  I looked up at Danny and Taylor whose eyes went wide.  They inspected the remaining Piton and declared that it looked bomber, so I continued and the three of us finished the rappel with no incident.

At this point we all felt safer, but still hustled down the remaining slopes with headlamps on, and then the long hike out.  We made it back to the car at 10:35pm.  We were starving and dehydrated but we were in great spirits.  Car to car we’d spent 13 hours climbing, and despite the false summit and the popping pitons, it was really quite fun.

Here are a few of the pictures I took while climbing:http://picasaweb.google.com/rowantrollope/MtLaurelAscentApril2008